23 – Press passes open

press

bags packed

decency and humanity surrendered

the airport death lens

jumping

passes

shoulder to the door

faces

microphones

caskets

hearts and minds

the unreconstructed

open

doors

to the sparkling photo op

mercantilist dream

come again and again

press

flowers in a long forgotten book of verse

open doors preferring closed door pronouncements

as we forgive our borders

open wide and awe

press passes

asking

the same questions to the same people

the same answers

windows shimmering

candlelight

the erotic stillness alien

open lovers

open doors

ear zoomed

press passes open

the gates to media mazes

predetermined pathways

Priscilla Brett, Tim Posgate, Catherine Heard, Roland Prevost, Tanis MacDonald, Linda Steer, Kathleen Betts, Rob Budde, Warren Dean Fulton, Gary Barwin, Lynn McClory, Andrew Topel, Kemeny Babineau, Jacob Wren, Todd Bruce, Richard Rathwell, Joan Guenther, James Dewar, Brian Bartlett, Michelle Mackay

24 – Interviews to Tell

interviews to tell the faint-of-heart from the worthy

the heroes from the villains

who did what when

while avoiding the whys and the world

will now the public misinform the powerful

regarding their imminent irrelevance?

interviews tell

interspeech to show

inner views

views too tall

the technology of the other

the remainder of oneself

the receptacle of becoming

to tell it like it isn’t

the longest yarns

water and coinless

tell less than was asked

more than we wanted to know

where the tales

lies in whispered radios

cover darkness

the inter’s tale

the iron maiden’s embrace

the first time I read what will not be heard

how writers will tell

what the interviewer puts the interviewee’s mouth

a robot by choice and circumstance

by the way, the non-believer will rot in hell

interviews to tell the loveliest written

in the midst of an alphabet

embarrassing outcomes tell all

tell where to find lies

Paul Vermeersch, Warren Dean Fulton, Jamie Reid, Jacob Wren, Angela Rawlings, Andrew Topel, Lynn McClory, Todd Bruce, Kristen Peterson, Amanda Earl, Andréa Ledding, Gary Barwin, Priscilla Brett, Catherine Heard, Nicolas Béaud, Joan Guenther, Brian Bartlett, John Bonomo, Joseph Brown, Karl Jirgens, Warren Dean Fulton, Tanis MacDonald, Natalee Caple, Richard Rathwell

26 – A story of

A story of a stubborn donkey who sat down at the gates of the city.

A story of who became you.

A story of perogies and betrayal.

A story of this from Casey: Daddy and the butterfly.

A story from Imogen: a story that is too shaky and wiggly to tell.

A story of random places, the unknown spaces out of time.

A story of deep repurcussions.

A story of a marmoset, an ice scraper and the love shared with a toilet bowl brush.

A story of communist artists in skirts.

A story of gargantuan proportions.

o stay for a story of

a story of heroics, a mad man and a chimpanzee, humanity, short and disappointing.

A story of the birth of a narration.

A story of no consequence to you perhaps but it altered my life forever…

A story of indescribable brevity. The end.

A story of the world shakes off its parasites when they become too noxious.

A story of poets who gave their all. Posting on Gregory’s facebook wall.

A story of no it doesn’t. It puts them in charge.

A story of outlandish proportions.

Brian Bartlett, Natalee Caple, Tanis MacDonald, Satu Kaikkonen, Kees Kapteyn, Pearl Pirie, Susan Christian, Kristen Peterson, Joan Guenther, Priscilla Brett, Gary Barwin, Jamie Reid, Todd Bruce, Carmen Racovitza, Mike Hargrove, Andréa Ledding, Jessa Hargrove, Catherine Heard

27 – Global Empire Fantasies

Napoleon’s career abound

yet eludes them

expand until they explode

cuckoldry fantasies

whistle Dixie and shrink-wrap

every McHappy meal

don’t forget to say cheese

feel a chill in the shadow of Ozymadias,

penal vampire empathies

dreamed up by a media

a cartoon mouse

global empire fantasies

need victims

along with the moon and stars

empire fantasies have nothing, are fun,

only the shortsighted see

a deathstar – Wikileaks

global fantasies, colonial whoredom

the receding red of Queen Victoria’s lace

empires outlive their welcome

disintegrate from within

Nick Treanor, Alice Robinson, Jamie Reid, Tanis MacDonald, Tom Cull, Andréa Ledding, Kristen Peterson, Brian Bartlett, Rob Budde, Warren Dean Fulton, Nicolas Béaud, Todd Bruce, Amanda Earl, Gary Barwin, Priscilla Brett, Catherine Heard, Jacob Wren

28 – Build a career

demolish a life, swing the hammer, ride the pendulum

unfinish business

build a career three words at a time

on the lonely poets torn from prose

woven into plundered wonder

of bark and roses

from beer and cul de sacs

if you can draw this mouse

a gift from god

brick by brick

without ever having to learn

correspondence

watch new technology wipe out jobs

build a career by careening and careering

but don’t become it, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow,

a castle of dreams, sharing the treasure.

Promise not to wake up.

Build a fear out of passion and risk.

Build a career – win valuable prizes!

(batteries not included)

build a career and buy gold

build a career wreck a life

build a career careening into buildings

build a career and create a life

build a career if you have no life

or ride a blue arc

Andréa Ledding, Gary Barwin, Priscilla Brett, Linda Steer, Rob Budde, Vanessa Place, Miekal And, Catherine Heard, Jamie Reid, Warren Dean Fulton, Nick Treanor, Kateri Lanthier, Todd Bruce, Brian Bartlett, Kathleen Betts, Jordan Fry, Susan Christian, Carmen Racovitza, Christian Bök, Ralph Kolewe, Joseph Brown, Natalee Caple, Andrew Topel, Laura Nichols, Amanda Earl, Joan Guenther

29 – By repeating your

by repeating your mistakes, you engender confidence

by repeating your name neatly on the first line

your mistakes eventually become expert

a deadly mantra repeating

repeating tremor an enigma of confidence

you speak percussively, repeating possession

by repeating your errors you establish traditions

by repeating your repeating you’re repeating your repeating

mistakes you’ll be successful at failure

by repeating your ripe torpidity

tall tales you become an urban legend

by repeating what Angela said

by repeating the choir of echolalia,

rehearsing syllables twice

repeating sounds, you establish your language

your echopraxia will march in step

your thank you thank you thank you troops

repeat myself

remember everything you say

in an unproductive way

overcome with the redone

go to bed go to bed go to bed go to bed

why are you out of bed?

I know

Catherine Heard, Bryne Helen Lewis, Vanessa Place, Andréa Ledding, Warren Dean Fulton, Linda Steer, Brian Bartlett, Gary Barwin, Natalee Caple, Angela Rawlings, Laurie Anne Fuhr, Rob Budde, Kateri Lanthier, Miekal And, Amanda Earl, Nicholas Béaud, Carmel Purkis, Kathleen Betts, Satu Kaikkonen, Priscilla Brett

30 – Fictionalized Misleading Spin

a top blurring the narrative into dizzy lines

defines our current government

bottled and sold with snake oil

and a pack of player’s light king size please

not now I have a headache sensationalized

lies on whim leads to tragic midway accident

spun of the friction of the lead

dictionary spins on, clanking and groaning,

as if the spinning earth itself would split

but plausible – so true –

leaves me with nothing, no ideas

the emptied bottle of gin

French-kiss bureaucrats

the spic and spac of sanitized sense

frictionless meaning leading to policed fictions

jumping through hopes

fictionalized misleading spin

makes the drains run backwards in Alaska

the dryer leave all the clothes still soaked

the wheel of fortune telling in Harperland

same old same old boy games

I am dizzied to the point of incompetence

it all comes out at the laundromat

Bryne Helen Lewis, Ted Betts, Amanda Earl, Tom Cull, Kristen Peterson, Priscilla Brett, Natalee Caple, Andrew Topel, Jamie Reid, Geoff Smith, Joseph Brown, Andréa Ledding, Gary Barwin, Laurie Anne Fuhr, Brian Bartlett, Kathleen Betts, Catherine Heard, Warren Dean Fulton

31 – Sell the Stories

sell the stories back

just don’t sell them out

we all know you plagiarized

they sell you

wag your tails

leave this place

or sell your soul

gift the poem

to the media

sell the stories to hell

all with the same ending

sell the stories but buy the truth

in the mall

give them away if you can

for a song

for your dinner

but stories like a commodity:

if bought then sold

charge no price

the market for short fiction has dwindled

hold fast the typesetter’s leaden bones

James Yeary, Lauren Corman, Joseph Brown, Jamie Reid, Andre Bouchard, Lesley Bell, Mike Bouchard, Kristen Peterson, Rob Budde, Cole Lewis, Terry Trowbridge, Gary Barwin, Brian Bartlett, Amanda Earl, Alice Robinson, Jim Andrews, Nicolas Béaud, Priscilla Brett, Catherine Heard

32 – Politics All Edited

discredited and farced

prosody of the merely possible

bound in contradictions

is usally all we get

by information’s red pen

then Wikileaks provided rough drafts

of “information”

spin doctors juggling

citation

no,

up with no place to go

politicians all indicted

edict of the elliptical

so now we need to shred it

Priscilla Brett, Rob Budde, Catherine Heard, Jamie Reid, Gary Barwin, Warren Dean Fulton, Joseph Brown, Andrew Waldie Porteus, Kit Dobson, Andrew Topel, Brian Bartlett

33. Ads are Sold

Ads are sold and yet

no one buys their content

the rest

by the line,

out wherever books are sold

never mind

ads are sold, sad roles

skin tags, mad men

so old

they exist by Agate lines

so real

limited time offers

Helvitica bold, cold

but we buy them

level wonderful feeling

mouthwash consumers are bought

proclaiming how mild and flavourful Camels are

your happiness depends on doubting your female hygiene

your nerves are not made of steel

you wonder how your body can stand

Amanda Earl, Jacob Wren, Warren Dean Fulton, Carmen Racovitza, Holden Levack, Laurie Damon Boese, Andrew Waldie Porteus, Andrew Topel, Lynn McClory, Bryne Helen Lewis, Kateri Lanthier, Nicholas Béaud, Joan Guenther, Andréa Ledding, Lauren Corman, Kristen Peterson, Brian Bartlett, Gary Barwin, Catherine Heard

34. News is Printed

when facts feel a craving for spin

and stories are written

by Sisyphus

cash is minted

don’t feel poor,

written, wrought

sold before events take place

on a roll

the length of the Earth

to encage the future

the temporal becomes spatial

wind’s prints hoping for a monument

print is noosed

like the ink,

like stories, fact, fiction

stain our fingers with blurred words

like accentuated taffy

smudged, forgotten

faith accumulates daily

journalism becoming journalists

die a slow death

like when we pull off the covers

Jacob Wren, Laurie Damon Boese, Rob Budde, Susan Christian, Priscilla Brett, Nicolas Béaud, Brian Bartlett, Jamie Reid, Gary Barwin, Andrew Topel, Andréa Ledding, Kateri Lanthier, Sarah Cunningham, Catherine Heard, Natalee Caple, Warren Dean Fulton

35. Your Papers Delivered

by airplane, as a paper airplane tossed out a window

as an attachment you cannot open with existing software

the news I was fearing

babies from my frontal lobes

you dropped in the snowbank and cried “Hallelujah”

at the conference, well received

proof beyond disbelief

singing DNA fibrous

hush on fingertips, no prints dragged away

you read, I shivered!

Your tongue unlunged

beautiful wishes and ugly truths

to be filed away in the deepest recesses of the library

to degrade over fish and chips

Warren Dean Fulton, Susan Christian, Allison Sekular, Roland Provost, Brian Bartlett, Joseph Brown, Andréa Ledding, Pearl Pirie, Roger Hanna, Gary Barwin, Kristen Peterson, Catherine Heard, Kateri Lanthier

36. People Buy News

people buy news gossip

feel secure, far removed,

older than the newspaper

but they crave poetry

out of nostalgia

because money gets lonely

it’s really propaganda

but it’s believed too

even when they aren’t convincing

selling Taylor Swift bangs, OMG bangs!

rather than making it,

people buy lies, believe it,

leave it

good news is without warning, without aim, without substance

people buy newspapers to line bird cages, and wrap up

fill the psychic void

people buy news

when they fail to make news

with adrenaline pennies,

Deleuze and shoes,

without a critical thought

when they’ve wrung out the blues

that doesn’t stay news

Laurie Anne Fuhr, Catherine Heard, Brian Bartlett, Andréa Ledding, Kateri Lanthier, derek beaulieu, Amanda Earl, Colin Hill, Pearl Pirie, Warren Dean Fulton, Garry Thomas Morse, Roger Hanna, Kathleen Betts, Linda Steer, Warren Dean Fulton, Kim Goldberg, Christian Bök, Susan Christian, Tom Cull, Bernadette Wagner, Kristen Peterson, Gary Barwin